Constructed on an old landfill, Arenda is low income housing for about 100,000 people in the Metro Manila area of the Philippines.
Many residents pick through the remaining garbage for things they can clean and sell for income.
The low-income houses are often constructed from scraps of whatever people can find, and proudly dressed up with flowers, fabric and other decor.
During a Work & Witness trip, someone watching the kids asked, "I wonder how many teachers, preachers and doctors we're seeing here?"
Pastor Lucinda "Luz" Tamayo has led Taytay First Church of the Nazarene in ministry to Arenda.
Through ministry to children, Taytay Church has seen families become more responsive to the Gospel.
Today, Taytay First Church's feeding program reaches 250 children each Saturday, representing more than 100 families.
Before the Arenda church building was complete, many came to share a service inside.
As Taytay begins reaching out to a new community called Tibagan, feeding its children again opens doors for relationship and ministry.
The church plant in Arenda now has 118 members, and 100 to 150 families regularly attend worship. Lay volunteers provide full-time leadership.
While on a mission trip to Arenda, Daniel Pape heard God's call to missions. His family are now missionaries in the Philippines.
It began as a place where things without value were thrown away and forgotten. A local church saw it as a place with immeasurable worth, home to people who are a priceless treasure of God.
It’s called Arenda. This former garbage dump was turned into a low income housing project two decades ago when the Metro Manila government needed land to relocate poor families. Workers cleared the hill-sized mounds of rotting food scraps, broken furniture, rusted metal, old car parts and other junk. Cheap structures went up, and soon roughly 100,000 people were living in the small area.
Many scavenge through the leftover trash for things with value that can be cleaned up and sold to support their families.
Nearby Taytay First Church of the Nazarene also saw something of value, shining through the dirt and scraps – people created by a God who treasures them so much He gave up His only Son to redeem them.
Because the Taytay church has poured out Christ’s love to Arenda, God’s call to join His mission has reverberated to people not only in Arenda, but throughout Manila and to the other side of the world.
Planting seeds
In 2000, Rev. Lucinda “Luz” Tamayo, pastor of the 400-strong Taytay First Church of the Nazarene, cast a vision to the congregation to adopt Arenda and plant a church there. She selected and trained leaders on personal evangelism, taking the group to Arenda for weekly ministry.
At first, they visited Arenda to establish Bible studies and Sunday school, going house to house sharing about Jesus.
“It's really hard to share the Word of God in Arenda. It took us time, you know, before we were able to get the respect and get the trust," said Tamayo. “We found out that poor people will listen when you give them something material because it’s what they need....To minister to the poor the church needs to do something other than teach and preach the Word; we need to literally meet some of their physical needs. When the people feel that they are loved, they respond.”
So the church began a small feeding program for the children of Arenda. Women from Taytay cooked rice, fish, meat and vegetables and served about 50 children each Saturday. Now, eight years later, the church feeds about 250 children representing more than 100 families every week. Ministry to the children eventually opened doors with their parents.
In 2003, Taytay acquired a plot of land in Arenda where they put up a tent and conducted mission programs. Soon they had enough attendees for a Work & Witness team to come in 2005 and build a church building for the Arenda church plant.
Today, the Arenda mission church has seen 118 people become members, and 100 to 150 families regularly attend worship. Among the original lay volunteers to Arenda, Rina and Jun Candano provide full-time leadership. The attendees operate numerous programs on their own initiative, such as Sunday school for children, youth and adults, Sunday morning worship services, afternoon Nazarene Youth International (NYI) meetings, Wednesday prayer meetings and weekday Bible studies, Tamayo said.
(To hear more from Pastora Tamayo, read her interview in full.)
Seeds sown in good soil
In spite of this success, it has not been easy to grow the church in Arenda, where people pick through the garbage that still remains from the original landfill for things they can sell, Tamayo said.
“The reality about the poor people, the church has no way to help them endure materially,” she explained. “Even if we share Jesus with them, the growth of their faith is not that much because they want to see evidence of their faith in material things.
“They would say, ‘We don’t have jobs, we don’t have future and the church cannot give that.’ We say, ‘Just trust Jesus and He is able to provide for you all those things.’ But in a situation like in the Philippines where the whole community is poor … that seems to be a contradiction to what they want to believe.”
Poverty does not defeat God’s mission, Tamayo said, pointing to the families who have accepted Christ and are maturing through discipleship in their faith.
“It is harder to minister to the poor, that’s what we are experiencing,” she said. “But the Lord is working.”
For instance, two years ago the 8-year-old child of an Arenda church family asked a stranger to buy her ice cream. He bought her the ice cream, but then with two other men murdered the girl and disposed of her body in a garbage bag. Two of the men were arrested, convicted and imprisoned. The girl’s family, as well as other members of the Arenda church, reached out to the family of their daughter’s killer with forgiveness and compassion, inviting them to church. Both families are attending together, said missionary Greg Taylor.
Across the street from the Arenda church lives an artist who cannot walk. His wife visited the mission church, accepted Christ into her life and began volunteering with the church’s children’s program.
“Everytime we’d have people go in there to the church, people would stop in and buy some of his art work,” said missionary Terri Taylor. “He got saved, too, and attends the church regularly now.”
Tamayo tells about a young man named Mark.
“Mark often passed the church on his way around Arenda. Whenever he passed by the church, he wondered, ‘What are these people doing here?’ One day, he was attracted by some music coming from the church. He went to see what was going on – a group of 10 youth were being taught some guitar lessons and Christian songs (part of the ministry). He was invited to come in and join them. Because he loves music, he became a regular comer to the music session every Sunday afternoon until he received Jesus in his heart. He started coming to church regularly to the Sunday morning worship service and eventually became a children’s worker and youth leader. He is now the president of the Arenda NYI and is enrolled in our Christian leadership training program. He wants to serve the Lord in whatever capacity he can.”
As the Arenda mission church has slowly become more self-sufficient, Taytay continues to assist while at the same time adopting a new child – the impoverished community of Tibagan.
Tibagan is a small block within a larger community near Taytay. Again the congregation began with a feeding program currently reaching 50 families. Eventually it started Bible studies with a combined attendance around 40. Many have also begun attending Sunday worship services, Tamayo said.
“Just like what happened in Arenda, we have been ministering to children for three years before the adults really come,” said Tamayo.
Bearing fruit
The people of this landfill community have been more than simply recipients of practical assistance and Christian compassion. They have served as catalysts that enabled others to hear the whispered call of God to join His mission.
Earl and Irene Pape, of Colorado, U.S., were part of a 2004 Work & Witness team to Asia Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary (APNTS), but visited nearby Arenda on a Saturday during Taytay’s feeding ministry. While Earl watched the children playing, a friend asked, “I wonder how many teachers, preachers, doctors and lawyers we are seeing here?”
“That question haunted me all the next week,” Earl said.
A computer software engineer who worked on such prestigious projects as the U.S.’s lunar landing program in the 1960s, early phases of its space shuttle program, and the first three operational releases for Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, Earl had grown up poor in New Mexico.
“The kinds of games those kids were playing were the games I played as a child, with marbles and whatever else we could scavenge,” Earl said. He wondered how many of the children in front of him might have opportunities for careers like he had if, like him, they could benefit from the loving, nurturing environment of a church family that instills self-confidence, encouraging its children to be the best they can be for God’s glory.
The Papes told Greg Taylor that if Taytay was able and ready to provide teachers, staff and pastors for a church in Arenda, they would see that the funding was available to construct a church building. Taytay quickly put together a ministry plan and found staff and volunteers.
By January 2005, a Work & Witness team recruited and led by Taylor's friends, Ray and Becki Neu, with members from Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Colorado, and Idaho arrived to build the church.
Earl, Irene and their son, Daniel, a recent art graduate from Northwest Nazarene University, were on the work team. Daniel had been on Work & Witness trips before. But this one was different.
“During my time in Arenda in 2005, I can so clearly recall the point at which God confirmed my life would not be the same,” Daniel said. “I was shoveling rock from a large pile to use as back fill before pouring the foundation slab. The pile of blue stone was as tall as I was. It was hard and hot, steam was rising off of it in the morning sun.
“As I began to dig into the pile, the inner stone was damp and cool. Still deeper into the pile I began to notice small green sprouts. The interior of the pile was full of tiny budding plants. The contrast of this new life in the midst of such a harsh environment—stone, dust, trash and squalor—immediately reminded me of the Lord’s words that the harvest is ripe, but the workers were few.
“Four weeks later, Melissa and I were starting the process to move to the Philippines with our three children.”
Daniel now serves as administrative director of the World Mission Communication Center for the Asia-Pacific Region. He and Melissa are the region’s longest serving Mission Corps missionaries. (Watch Daniel and Melissa’s video testimony, "Falling in Love with Arenda.")
Just as the people of Arenda reclaim junk from the piles of trash, God invisibly strides through their homes built of scraps of wood and discarded metal, gathering up priceless lives that have been soiled and tarnished by sin and poverty, cleaning them up and making them new.
And He is calling His people to join Him in his redeeming, transforming work.
-- Photos are courtesy Earl Pape, Daniel Pape, Jarrett Davis.